Sunday, August 14, 2011

COKIE'S LAW REDUX

One of Digby's better contributions to the documentation of the decline of American journalism is Cokie's Law,
named after ABC and NPR talking head Cokie Roberts: If you tell a lie
enough so that low-information viewers believe it, it becomes growing
conventional wisdom, then the truth at hand, and then finally accepted
fact. Lemkin catches Cokie's Law in action on "The S&P Downgrade means we have to cut SS/Medicare".

Pretty disturbing if you think about it. What does that mean? The new Village Serious Centrists have a battle cry:

“S&P downgrade caused massive loss of wealth in DJI; therefore
Social Security and Medicare must be cut; elimination is the GOP’s
preferred outcome, therefore the “sensible center” is merely devastating
cuts followed on every few years with more “sensible” cuts until we
reach said elimination. This is the only Serious Position possible on
the issue when one considers the facts of the S&P downgrade and its devastating impact on the Dow. Why, some say that as much as $1T in wealth evaporated. We simply must act to cut Social Security. Everyone knows it is the problem here.”

And that's where we end up, like Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Gore invented the Internet, we were downgraded not because of the GOP, but because of Social Security.

There will be nothing else. No other opinion will be allowed, and if
directly challenged by the reality of the situation, reporters and
pundits will characterize the truth as simply one other fringe “opinion” that the dirty fucking hippies are pushing again, and no better or worse than the obvious fallacy that was created by them
simply because said fallacy has been widely reported. When (and if)
directly challenged on the ontogeny of said MSM-created fallacy, they
will elect to “leave it there,” declare it “complicated,” or, in the
case of Cokie herself, sputter about it being “out there.” You heard it
here first.

And God help me, I don't see how there's any other way this plays out
otherwise. None. There's no plan B here, and along with SS/Medicare
we're going to see more massive cuts in government programs. President
Obama's not going to be able to stop them because enough Democrats in
Congress will agree with the narrative, just like Iraq, Afghanistan,
torture, Gitmo, etc.